Slashdot Mirror
What the Trump Win Means For Tech and Science (arstechnica.com)
Republican nominee Donald Trump has won the US Presidential election to become the country's 45th president. Now that he is going to run the government, it's a good time to look back on the kind of policies and changes he is likely to bring in the United States. From an article on ArsTechnica:Trump's presidency could bring big changes to regulation of Internet service providers -- but most of them are difficult to predict because Trump rarely discussed telecom policy during his campaign. The Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules could be overturned or weakened, however, if Trump still feels the same way he did in 2014. At the time, he tweeted, "Obama's attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media. [...] With Trump's win, it's still not clear what a Trump administration would do on the issues of cybersecurity and encryption. As Ars reported last month, Trump and his campaign team have been vague on many such details. During the presidential debates, he brushed off the intelligence community's consensus that the attacks against the Democratic National Committee were perpetrated or silently condoned by the Russian government. But Trump did call for a boycott of Apple -- a boycott of which he didn't even abide by -- during Cupertino's fight with federal prosecutors about whether Apple should be forced to help the authorities unlock a killer's encrypted iPhone. [...] Trump's presidency, by some accounts, is likely to be a disaster for science. Most analyses of his proposed budgets indicate they will cause deficits to explode, and a relatively compliant Congress could mean at least some of these cuts will get enacted. That will force the government to figure out how to cut, or at least limit, spending. Will science funding be preserved during that process? Trump's given no indication that it would. Instead, many of his answers about specific areas of science focus on the hard choices that need to be made in light of budget constraints. With the exception of NASA, Trump hasn't identified any areas of science that he feels are worth supporting. More generally, Trump has indicated little respect for the findings of science.The Silicon Valley top heads were largely upset with the outcome of the Presidential Election, to say the least.
his position on climate change: doesn't exist, and we need to fire up america's coal mines again, regardless of the pollution.
What does the Trump win mean for tech? Not a clue.
And I seriously doubt anyone else has a clue either. But we should have a lot of fun poking holes in the Other Guy (tm) who thinks his WAG (wild-ass guess) is better than our WAG....
To be slightly more serious, ignore the Trump win, look at the House and Senate, and you might have less WA in your WAG....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I'm afraid . . . has disappeared completely up its own asshole.
Regarding the tech industry, let's look at Apple Inc. I think that article misses a really big issue: Tech Manufacturing.
Trump stated that he wanted Apple to make it's products here in the USA. That might be possible with a system of tariffs. But the bigger issue is that type of protectionism would push companies like Apple out of world markets due to not being able to be price competitive.
Under those kinda of pressures I think tech companies might just leave the US.
Back when I worked for Apple we had manufacturing in Ireland. The decision to do so was based (apparently) on the cost and taxes associated with "doing business". The argument that this hurt American workers might be valid- though it did not hurt American business and certainly bolstered Apple's bank account.
For the tech industry it depends on where you want to place the pressure to "bring American jobs back"... If you institute tariffs, you can price the company out of the world market or drive them out of the country. If you are permissive about allowing companies to operate outside the USA for manufacturing you lose worker bee jobs.
Since the above is true, without a mitigating factor to be found, the answer is not trying to return tech jobs to the USA. Given the lower costs abroad it doesn't seem possible.
However, retooling the workforce through education, development of new technology, and American innovation would work- assuming that the situation with international intellectual property law does not worsen. It also depends on a lack of anti-intellectualism. Which is at an all time high at the moment.
So most of the issues up in the air with this new situation have to do with issues which are only mitigated by policies this president-elect does not support.
Old-school big-industry manufacturing is gone. It's not coming back. The only way to rekindle those kinds of jobs is through the development of new products.
Which means science. And we are not going to see much of that.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Should learn to be less openly disrespectful of regular Americans.
... for brick layers. Allegedly based near Big Bend National Park.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
With the exception of NASA, Trump hasn't identified any areas of science that he feels are worth supporting.
We really don't have much idea at all what it means even for NASA. Trump has said, referring to space exploration:
“Right now, we have bigger problems — you understand that? We’ve got to fix our potholes...” -- Trump
LOL. Have you been paying attention to STEM in academia recently?
For the last few years it's been under constant assault from entryist feminists - evo psych and biology were the first targets, but even physics and maths have come under assault recently. It's all been coming from the gender studies/social science departments that spew out risible agenda research that's reprinted by the media.
Academia needs to be brutally... and I do mean brutally... cut back on. Not STEM subjects... fund them more, but axe all funding for bullshit social science and most humanities.
If you want those... fund them yourself.
Yeah this campaign has been more bumper stickers and slogans than specific policy proposals, so we really don't know yet.
Having studied Trump as a businessman, I strongly suspect he doesn't know which policies he'll propose - that will depend on what he hears from the experts he hires. In his long business career, he hired really smart people and trusted their judgement, rather than micro-managing, thinking he knew everything betterv than everyone else. His role was threefold a) the public face, drumming up publicity, b) negotiating major deals and c) overall leadership. He largely left the operational details to the very competent people he hired.
Let's HOPE he does the same as President, signing off on foreign policy developed by foreign policy experts, economic policy developed by experts in economics, etc.
Also one in particular - another Republican leader, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is a budget nerd, who actually wrote several federal budgets and knows the federal budget perhaps better than anyone else. There's been tension between Trump and Paul Ryan during the campaign. Hopefully that tension is healed and Trump respects Ryan's significant expertise.
A lot of people lost lifespan last night for sure.
America went to the fridge, read the expiration date on the spoiled milk, smelled the
spoiled milk, and said "eh, best way to know if it is spoiled is to chug the whole thing down."
My only hope is that Trump opponents realize how fragile our country is, and don't put any
additional stress on it while it collapses. This will both hold them blameless as republicanism
is exposed as a fraudulent ideology, and increase the changes enough pieces survive so
that after this disaster there is still enough left to glue back together.
Someone had to do it.
Like Venezuela is now?
Absolutely fscking true.
We may have a sexist buffoon for a president now, but at least democracy has a chance for another four years.
You're freaking out based on things he never talked about... Aside from massive investments in failed alternative energy companies (Solyndra, etc.) and reports that the told NASA a big part of their mission was to make arabs feel good about their historical contributions to science, what did a President Obama do to 'put science back in it's rightful place'? Oh wait, he reversed a Bush admin ban on federal funding of fetal stem cell research - that explains all the great advances in stem cell research since he took office...
Look, I understand you all need to vent and the previous article was full of wailing and gnashing of teeth, but it's time to put on your big-boy pants and start acting like adults.
The election isn't about "getting your way", it's about "crowdsourcing a decision". The crowd chose not to go with Clinton, and there were a lot of votes in support of that decision. Deal with it, the rules were well defined from the beginning and you had plenty of time to prepare and build your case.
We've complained about corruption in politics in this very forum for years, saying essentially "if only we could get someone in office who wasn't in the pocket of big money". I agree with that sentiment entirely: political corruption has been driving the country into the dirt for decades, and it's reached a level where that sentiment can swing the election.
If you don't like it, maybe you should have done something collectively in the last 8 years that made people less desperate for change.
Traditionally, a new president gets 100 days (in office) before we start judging his actions, let's wait and see what happens.
Insults no longer matter. Hallucinations no longer matter. Screaming and rhetoric and holding your breath no longer matter.
Have a positive outlook and help improve the mood. The guy might actually make things better.
We're tired of your insults.
Get over it.
I propose a moratorium on all "what does the Trump victory mean for..." until the guy is actually in office and starts doing stuff, because right now no one has a clue (least of all him) what he's actually going to try to do.
I don't even know at this point whether the Republicans are going to play along with him.
Heck at this point I don't event think I'd be surprised if someone offed him before January.
It means that a lot of science, tech, and other smart people and companies will be leaving the US.
I don't respond to AC's.
It's impossible to know what Trump will mean for R&D. He never actually said what his policies were on such things. He was vague about his policy on most things whilst getting elected. Perhaps it is strategic (if no one knows what you want to do, they can't vote against you for it)- or perhaps he hasn't really thought it through himself. I think he wanted to get elected to have the power more than to push any particular political agenda.
What we do know is that he is a climate change denier. We know he's not a big fan of NASA either. So climatology and space sciences will probably take a big hit. We also know that he wants to fund some pretty large projects, such as building a wall on the border, putting boots on the ground against ISIS, giving tax major breaks to the very wealthy.
Tariffs will result in lower trade, which in turn will result in less money for the government, so in order to get the budget in responsible territory, he'll need to cut costs somewhere. No one can predict where, but it stands to reason, public research grants might be where he retrieves money to offset the increase in spending (and lack of income) elsewhere.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The only issues that Trump was really firm about were ending free trade deals, curbing illegal immigration, and appointing pro-life Supreme Court justices.
What he's going to do about anything else is truly a mystery and it's probably best not to obsess over it.
And as a followup to the previous, for all the things that counted against Hillary Clinton, being a woman wasn't one of them.
Regardless of the hallucinations and rationalizations thrown from the left, the fact that she was a woman really didn't matter. The polls back this up.
The issue almost never came up. Trump responded when Hillary brought it up by saying that being a woman isn't a qualification for the job, but when Hillary dropped the issue so did Trump.
No one cares any more, just like no one cared that Obama was black. Obama never brought it up either - he never played the race card. It didn't matter.
There is no more glass ceiling. Hillary was judged not on the basis of her gender, but on her qualifications and (largely) her ethics.
We live in a world where a woman *actually could* be the next president. She'll be judged on her talent and abilities, but not her gender.
Hillary broke the glass ceiling.
Trump's main argument on Obamacare is that what employers and buyers need is a federal market where a buyer in one state can bypass their state and go directly to a seller in another state. I would have LOVED that a year ago before I changed employers. I was stuck with a crappy Blue Cross Blue Shield plan that covered half of my doctors. CIGNA covered everyone but they don't sell directly to Virginia residents like they do in the North East and elsewhere. Why? Probably because CIGNA hasn't found enough of a market to justify jumping through another set of regulatory hoops like a trained seal to sell to 3% of Virginia.
But imagine if I could just call their office in CT and say "Virginia resident here, ship me a quote. My Virginia doctors ALL take you. Would love to buy direct." No middle man, no bureaucrat. I say "give me the same plan you helped my self-insured employer XYZ sold." They give me a quote. That's it.
You know what I expect? Trump just might be the guy who tells the FCC to damn the torpedos and go full speed ahead on plowing under local franchise rules and monopolies. I expect that that case in NC where no one wanted to sell to a community but the state wouldn't let the community solve its own problems would rub Trump precisely the same way buying healthcare for his employees rubbed him. That is, very very raw at seeing regulators say "nuh uh cuz... uh nuh uh" and seeing his people get lower quality health care at higher prices.
Four years from now, we're all going to be living in the rubble and cooking squirrels over oil barrels.
So, no different to how the average Trump voter already lives.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
You're insane or profoundly stupid [...]
No, I just think the tidal wave insults should stop.
This is a forum of information and insight.
Get over yourself, post something of value.
... and even more of you mouth breathers will be unemployed as we smart people move out of the country. Good luck with your shithole! I'm sure the rich will take care of you...
I don't respond to AC's.
Trump stated that he wanted Apple to make it's products here in the USA. That might be possible with a system of tariffs.
No it will not. Tariffs will not cause that to happen. The USA almost utterly lacks the infrastructure to build products like what Apple makes domestically. The supply chains are almost all in China and various parts of eastern Asia. We lost those a long time ago and they aren't coming back soon. And I'm not even getting into the labor cost differential which absolutely matters. It would cost a fortune to manufacture an iPhone domestically at this point. Even Apple doesn't make enough profit to make that idea feasible.
Under those kinda of pressures I think tech companies might just leave the US.
There is no might. They would be forced to leave.
Old-school big-industry manufacturing is gone. It's not coming back. The only way to rekindle those kinds of jobs is through the development of new products.
Complete nonsense. The USA has a manufacturing sector worth over $3 TRILLION annually. By itself it would be one of the ten largest economies in the world. I've worked in manufacturing for several decades in the US and news of it's demise is greatly exaggerated. The sector has become a shrinking portion of the overall jobs market but there is plenty of manufacturing going on and very profitable manufacturing at that. It's just capital intensive manufacturing rather than labor intensive. If you want to bring back labor intensive manufacturing jobs you had better be prepared to pay low wages competitive with those in China and elsewhere.
Didn't he say he'd close up that internet somehow?
Regarding the tech industry, let's look at Apple Inc. I think that article misses a really big issue: Tech Manufacturing.
Trump stated that he wanted Apple to make it's products here in the USA. That might be possible with a system of tariffs. But the bigger issue is that type of protectionism would push companies like Apple out of world markets due to not being able to be price competitive.
And here is the basic fallacy of economics.
Our national economic health is measured by the total health of our companies. The welfare of the citizens is an afterthought in these calculations, a fake "unemployment rate" tells us how people are doing.
This is what fueled the recent election.
I don't particularly care what happens to Apple. The government shouldn't either. The government should look after its people.
If the people benefit while Apple has to struggle in world markets, would that be a bad thing?
It might also be possible with less regulation, lower labor costs, and lower corporate taxes
Translation: More corporate abuse and pollution, trampling worker rights, and a bigger national debt.
The costs abroad are only lower because we have artificially inflated US costs.
Only if you don't care about things like living wages, clean air, clean water, preventing corporate malfeasance, etc.
Really ? Trump is worse than the Nuclear War TCP/IP was built to survive through ???
America went to the fridge, read the expiration date on the spoiled milk, smelled the
spoiled milk, and said "eh, best way to know if it is spoiled is to chug the whole thing down."
My only hope is that Trump opponents realize how fragile our country is, and don't put any
additional stress on it while it collapses. This will both hold them blameless as republicanism
is exposed as a fraudulent ideology, and increase the changes enough pieces survive so
that after this disaster there is still enough left to glue back together.
*YOU* are why Trump won, and you don't even get it...
The arrogance with which you state that any ideology other than your own is "fraudulent" is EXACTLY why Trump will be the next President. Lots of us "Deplorables" are sick and tired of people like you thinking you're so superior to us.
I don't consider Democrats to be "fraudulent", they are people and have points of view, but as soon as you dismiss ours, then frankly, you're the one who needs to lose for awhile and eat some humble pie. Enjoy Trump for awhile...
I'm not sure if you are being facetious, but if true, did it occur to you that people might be voting for Trump because they don't want to live like that anymore? They are tired of factories closing, low wage entry jobs being filled by over qualified out-of-work college graduates, etc. That's the despair what Trump was able to tap.
FTS: "Now that he is going to run the government..."
I'm a Canadian, so the subtleties of US governance are lost on me; but isn't the President largely a figurehead, except perhaps when it comes to foreign affairs? The Republicans control both Congress and the Senate, and both Congresscritters and Senators have a substantial degree of autonomy when it comes to voting and putting forth legislation, do they not? With the Republicans so much in power, does it really matter much if Trump, Cruz, Rubio, or some generic Republican occupies the White House?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Chances are good that there will be a house cleaning of some government-funded projects. Given his speech last night about rebuilding our infrastructure, which is usually a major tenet of the Left, it's entirely possible that funding will be increased for broadband projects. The question is whether or not there will be quid pro quo for such funding.
Trump does love grandiose projects, though, so I would expect funding for crown jewel stuff that makes for good PR such as NASA.
Four years from now, we're all going to be living in the rubble and cooking squirrels over oil barrels.
If you do it right, squirrel is pretty tasty.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yes. The nuclear bombs only had a physical capability to damage the Internet. Trump will have legal authority to damage the Internet.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's a good time to look back on the kind of policies and changes he is likely to bring in the United States.
You want to look back on the things he hasn't done yet? Sounds about right for Trump logic, I suppose...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
But not the power, since ICANN is now completely outside the jurisdiction of the US government
And this comment is how people like you helped Trump win.
For anyone who isn't leaving, the lesson is to be kind and respectful to people in the country, even if you have class or cultural differences with them. If you want to prosper, try to figure out how the rest of the country can prosper along with you.
Insults don't matter? Trump's campaign was nothing but heckling and insults, seems like these things really matter to the American people
How was that crow you had for breakfast?
The electoral college has yet to vote.
This is exactly the kind of thing the institution was created to protect us from -- ill-considered actions by the voters; one of the critical flaws of democratic action by the masses. The wolves deciding what's for dinner.
The system allows for the EC to act on this by not voting him into the presidency. There are numerous strong reasons to do so.
There are 29 states (plus the District of Columbia) that require lockstep following of the voting public issue; they issue a small variety of rarely enforced punishments for electors that do not do so, including fines and misdemeanors. EC members have individually done this 157 times to date, so there's plenty of precedent on a per-elector basis.
Also... if they don't do this... then I submit that the EC has proved that the institution has no actual worth.
Another thing: this circumstance was brought about by a dissatisfied public. Imagine the levels of dissatisfaction as automation adds its impetus to the job losses we've already seen due to recent labor policies. Now consider the chaos Trump could add to the mix if he actually follows through on some of the things he said on the campaign trail.
Some of those include an increased willingness to use nuclear weapons; disruption of current trade patterns; economic problems (we're already seeing some of that, check the news on world financial market reaction this morning); Walking back major aspects of social progress - Roe v. Wade, LBGT rights, etc.; government using religion to select people for abusive treatment... It's quite a list. I find it a formidable counter-indication in terms of expecting the next four years to go well, and the follow-on effects may last for considerably longer than that.
Remember how long it took under the Obama administration to recover from Bush's bumbling economic moves? Then there's the whole question of who ends up in whatever supreme court seats go vacant. That alone could change the nation's path in many negative ways, as we have previously seen several times.
Think I'll go for a walk.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
There are so many things in play that it's hard to tell. Trump really doesn't have too many detailed policies beyond building the wall, enacting tariffs and renegotiating trade agreements. I hope he ends up hiring competent advisors and not just his buddies. The only core policy item that seems clear is that everything is broken and will be "changed." How is the question...
I can think of a few conflicting items right off the top of my head:
- Republicans are going to control the legislature. They're owned by business leaders who aren't going to be too keen on anything that makes them pay more for labor or reshore manufacturing.
- Religious nuts are going to demand that we roll back things like climate research, science education, etc. And they'll have the ability to demand it by saying they were able to drag out all the other religious nuts to vote Trump in.
- Both the congress and president are more likely to side with business, which is directly opposed to the population that got Trump elected in the first place. Good luck getting things like visa reform passed in that climate...as soon as the business community gets their say, that one's over. No politician questions the argument that there is a shortage of domestic technical talent...it's why H-1B is still an operating visa program.
All I can say now is that it's going to be an interesting experiment. With automation in factory work, I don't know how many jobs will be back. I'm a Rust Belt kid and would love to see thousands of lower-intelligence, lower-skilled people working stable jobs in car plants, steel mills, etc. to keep society running. Not everyone can be a fedora-wearing hipster writing JavaScript code at a SV startup There are a lot of people who can't handle technical work, and those lower skilled people need a purpose in life. But, I doubt we're going back to the glory days of manufacturing where everything was made domestically by people working in single-income households and imported goods were exotic luxuries.
Or, he'll just tear everything up he said on the campaign trail and do the loose cannon thing. Who knows?
Lots of us "Deplorables" are sick and tired of people like you thinking you're so superior to us.
Have fun cleaning up your own mess. I won't be helping you with that.
Someone had to do it.
Insults like yours against the common person is what helped Trump take the election. I hope you're proud of yourself.
Being a distant relative to a basket of deplorable (I live in California), one-half of my lily-white family in Idaho lives exactly like that when they're not manufacturing and distributing meth. The better half of my family calls them white trailer trash and don't associate with them.
Would you like some help packing your suitcases? Printing out some Google maps? I'll even loan you gas money. Bon voyage!
Good point. That's true, he's not hands-off in the sense that he becomes isolated and unaware of operations, only understanding things in terms of major departments. A LOT of CEOs only know the financial numbers of each subsidiary, but haven't looked at in-the-field operations for 20 years.
While Trump gives his direct hires a good degree of autonomy, he also tours hotel under construction and notices details like having three hinges installed on each door vs two hinges. He's in touch with operations, while still trusting his hires. I'm glad you pointed this out because there may be a lesson for managers here. Trumps hybrid management style may be a significant factor in his success.*
* There was some FUD going around claiming "Trump inherited his money". His father, Fred Trump, did make millions buying fourplexes and such. Donald Trump made BILLIONS building (and promoting!) world-class casino hotels and luxury condos.
"Kind and respectful" is the exact opposite of what Trump has been promising, in case you have been asleep for the past year and a half. We'll be living somewhere where people are "kind and respectful". Life is too short not to.
I don't respond to AC's.
He may indeed let the Congress set most of the agenda. I suspect *maybe* he'll lead much more than Bush, though - he's led a large organization his whole career, always setting the vision. I think Bush Jr was much more playing a role according to cues from those around him, almost as if Bush Jr was pretending to be president until his dad, the real president, came back.
Where I definitely think he'll have influence is that Trump is very much "go big or go home". He does everything "HUGE!" He's a skilled negotiator, so he can meet in the middle, but whatever the final deal is, he wants it to be big, he doesn't want to waste time dealing in the small. He'll encourage Congress to go for it, whatever it is. (For example, he'd be all about a manned mission to Mars, he wouldn't care about yet another space telescope.)
How was that crow you had for breakfast?
Crow? this is popcorn time dude!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
"Kind and respectful" is the exact opposite of what Trump has been promising
Yeah, that's called a backlash. People like you should have been kind and respectful all along. It's not too late to start.
I consider social progress, among other things, as anything that moves the nation away from any imposition of coercive force contrary to the personal and consensual choices of the citizens.
Woman's bodies are theirs. Not yours. Not the government's. No matter how you feel about the issue, nothing in those feelings gives you, or the government, any right to tell them what to do with their bodies and any life that is physically growing within their bodies -- whether that life is growing as the result of an accident, intentionally, or consequent to criminal violation of their bodies by others. None. For the very same reasons that no one, regardless of their opinion of the matter, has the right to tell you if you may, or may not, choose to eat a cheeseburger.
Once a viable baby is no longer part of the woman's body and you want to care for it, and the parents are willing, that is the time that you might legitimately gain some semblance of direct control over the life and future of that baby.
Barring such a circumstance, any attempt you make to coerce that woman into doing something she does not want to do with her body is an act of tyranny.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
But not the power, since ICANN is now completely outside the jurisdiction of the US government
Because the Internet is nothing but DNS? I don't think so.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Lame article and sour grapes bias. I'm no fan of Trump either, but the first example used (future of ISP's) is an easy 5 second google.
http://www.bloomberg.com/polit...
Trump was quite clear it was against future amalgamations and consolidations as it offers no benefit to consumers. He was clear that he said he would be actively in favor of blocking said consolidations. I'll leave it to your common sense what that means for the average person.
As to other areas of science and technology, it is probably a bit more vague, but in at least that one example it is pretty straight forward what his opinion is. As it relates to technology in general the only thing I can think of off the top of my head is his enforcement of "fixing" the H1b issue for tech workers (if you actually believe him is another matter), and how much of an emphasis of how important the whole "Cyber" thing is (if you actually believe he knows anything about what he is talking about is another matter).
At any rate I don't think any of the "science and technology" really featured in any big way for any candidate really so it is kind of moot. I guess in a round about way Hillary adopting some of Sanders education stance may have enhanced academic science in universities through enrollment. Maybe. I don't think Trump was a big Climate Change guy either so you could probably call it a net loss at least in that respect.
If that had been the only good thing happened under Obama, it would still be enough to cement him in history as one of the most prescient PsOTUS in our history for allowing it to happen.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Since Trump has never articulated a comprehensive science/tech platform, the most we can hope for right now is that the Democrats will finally be shocked into ditching the anti-science left and reaching back to its great days of popularity under Roosevelt to rebuild its base.
Franklin Roosevelt summoned oil pipelines into being when the country needed them: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu...
Today's Democrats look for fake religious reasons - not even scientifically testable environmental arguments - why pipelines should not be built.
You don't like your family because they're white?
And trailer trash.
1) Might happen
2) Might happen
3) The centerpiece of his victory speech
4) Won't happen
5) Won't happen
6) Won't happen - see also #3
7) Sure as shit won't happen
8) Won't happen for the same reason we can't build pipelines, new power line rights of way, or any other new infrastructure: NIMBYism
I think South Park nailed it when Garrison opened a speech: :"I hate you all. Seriously I detest every single one of you"... because I've seen that look on Trump's face right before he starts speaking.
The country just elected a guy who used a high-pressure marketing scheme to defraud low-information entrepreneur wannabees out of their rather meager life savings, Tom Vu style. Welcome to the kleptocracy, folks. Investment advice for those who have no conscience about speeding our progress from kleptocracy to military dictatorship: invest in private security firms. Currently they will get a boost protecting money from new legal marijuana farms which by law cannot be deposited in banks for fear of seizure, and has to be kept around as cash, as many states passed legalization. Next step they'll be hired on by the new class of alpha male as a status symbol and later beefed up when they actually need them to protect themselves from their angry impoverished victims. But hey, at least crime will be democratized, among that stratum of society.
Someone had to do it.
This sort of angry, insulting rhetoric helps nobody. If America wants to move forward, people on both sides need to stop being such asshats and actually try to listen to each other.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Don't pretend like "both sides" are being asshats. Hilary and supporters don't call Mexicans rapists, don't grab women by the pussies, don't encourage violence. That's a false dichotomy.
I don't respond to AC's.
Both sides are being asshats. Trump said some illegal immigrants from Mexico were rapists, not that Mexicans as a whole were. It's a bigoted statement, but try to get it right. Given Bill's record I'd be surprised if he hadn't grabbed a few by the pussy. And Hillary's supporters don't encourage violence? That's a laugh. Take a look on Twitter some time. They are threatening to beat up Trump voters. They started fights at Trump rallies. They maced a (Hispanic) grandmother and one of her grandkids.
Bigger picture, the Left is guilty of painting all Trump supporters as if they were Trump himself, when many aren't bad people, they're just scared. Trump got lots of votes in areas where Obama did well with white voters. There are certainly elements of racism, but most of the Left are painting it like it's the whole picture. It's clearly not.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Insults like yours against the common person is what helped Trump take the election. I hope you're proud of yourself.
Hey, an AC post I agree with! Margins in the battleground states were pretty slim in some cases. I do wonder how many Trump voters got off their asses because they were called "deplorable"? Insulting in politics is much like bombing countries to break their moral. It rarely works and more often just deepens their resolve.
You should stop believing in fairytales. The internet was not designed to survive nuclear war. Hopefully, its ability to do so will never be tested.
I didn't say they were great people, let alone good. Just that most of them aren't bad. But yeah, keep the hyperbole train rolling.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Looking at the bigger picture, the economic picture, what these Trump supporters did, I am assuming they are not 1%ers, is to cut off their nose to spite their face. Trump's tax plan favors the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class. His tariffs will make goods much more expensive which will hit the poor and middle far more than the rich. Also, didn't he say he could shoot someone and still have supporters. If I were Republican I would consider that insulting.
I'm going to disagree somewhat. Most of his supporters were from rural areas, which didn't get much in the way of social services anyway - there's a budget bias towards the cities and it's harder to get aid in rural areas as well. As such, reduced taxes really only help those people. Tariffs would make goods more expensive, but if these people get jobs from new manufacturing (debatable) then they'd at least have something.
This is something I think a lot of the left didn't understand. Many small rural towns are disintegrating because the one factory that employed everyone closed down or moved. These people have very few economic prospects, and they've largely been ignored by both sides. The shunning by the left hurt more, though, because the left is supposed to care about the poor - but in practice they mostly help the urban poor. And the cultural forces, which are overwhelmingly liberal, make fun of them all the time. Call them stupid hicks, insult their lifestyle, etc. It was only natural they'd take offence at some point.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Wow, if this is how you think the majority of the American people live, then the USA really sucks and Trump is right, we need to MAGA. If this is what you really think of the people of the country, you're a real bigot.
It is called a joke, even one in poor taste. It is stupid to presume the average Trump supporter somehow constitutes the majority of America. Let's do some math, nothing hard, shall we?
231,556,622 eligible voters
46.9% didn't vote
25.6% voted Clinton
25.5% voted Trump
25.5% ain't a majority of America. They are a majority in our current EC model, and they are not in the popular vote.
US/Trump may exit WTO
Casteism